Friday, June 14, 2013

When parents have a biological child, that child is instantly theirs. They take them home and never look back. With an adoption, we are considered the "moral parents", but have no legal rights. We have to report back to our agency on a monthly basis with updates, send doctor reports to them, and have to wait 6 months until we can go to court and become the official legal parents with all of the rights that biological parents have.

I have a HUGE sigh of relief now.

Not that I minded all of the other, but I'm ready to be mom without having anyone looking over my shoulder, asking questions, etc.

And it FINALLY happened!

We are now a family of

FOUR!!!

PRAISE THE LORD for HE IS GOOD ALWAYS!

The ceremony was so sweet and the judge was extra nice! It was all so familiar since we were just here 2 and a half years ago with Kiir, in the same courthouse. There is just something so special about going to a courthouse with TONS of family with you and pledging to love unconditionally a child you did not birth.

Lex thoroughly enjoyed the ceremony and talked to the judge the entire time while banging on her bench. It was hilarious! She was so sweet and gave him a sock monkey as a gift. It was instantly christened with Lex's slobber.

I hope you enjoy these pictures of our special day.

And don't worry, as we left I was already wondering how long it will be before we are back at that courthouse finalizing another adoption.

1 year?

2 years?

And how many kids?

Only God knows. :)

Thank you to everyone that has prayed for us throughout this journey! We love you all very much and want to share this special day especially with you!

But we honestly have never gone on a vacation as a family since we have adopted Kiir and now that he's 20, we thought it was about time!

So we asked him if he could go anywhere in the US, where would he want to go.

"Hawaii!"

Ummm, we don't have enough money for that. Try again.

"Ummmm, New York?"

"Okay, we can pull off NYC."

So we started planning for a trip in July when it's super hot in TX.

But then Kiir found out that his favorite soccer (oh wait, excuse me, "futbol") team, Chelsea, was playing over Memorial Day weekend. When he told us, we blew it off, telling him we had to work and it wouldn't be possible. Secretly, though, we were researching, booking a hotel, flight, and buying some good seats for the game to surprise him with.

We waited until 1 week before we were scheduled to leave and told him by tagging him in a FB post. Oh how I wish we would have recorded his reaction because it was priceless! He was super ecstatic to say the least. He didn't really care about doing anything else in NYC as long as he got to go to the game.

I had never been to NYC, so I of course wanted to do it all. Boy did my feet regret that decision! My ankles are still a little swollen days after getting back! It was so much fun though and we all enjoyed it so much (except that Kiir regrets going to a broadway show and all three of us regret going to the Empire State Building due to the wait time and crowded deck to look out.)

By the time it was time to go home, we were all ready to get back. Me especially since Lex stayed with the grandparents and it was the first time he wasn't with us!

My favorite quote from Kiir on the trip was "I thought I would like it, but I could never live here. I'm ready to get home!"

As an adoptive parent, my heart melted at that comment and Kelly and I shared a little smile while reading each others thoughts across the subway. It was a wonderful trip, full of bonding, walking, laughing, more walking, site seeing, more walking, eating fun food, more walking, and just enjoying each others company. :)

These are just a few of my favorite pictures from our trip.
Yes, we took just a few and this is just a small percentage of what we took!

Fun statues we found in the subway entrances. We literally took about 15 minutes just looking at them all!